Laura Jean McKay (2009), Cambodia
Laura Jean McKay is a writer and performer whose award-winning prose has been published and featured broadly, from Best Australian Stories to ABC Radio National. Her short story collection received high commendation in the Clouds of Magellan Novel Competition, and she has recently completed a Young Adult fiction novel. She has lived and worked in Southeast Asia, with her travel writing published by Lonely Planet. McKay used her residency to work closely with the Nou Hach Literary Association to research Cambodian storytelling, and assisted with workshops and organising an international poetry festival. She also researched and began writing a novel exploring 1960s Cambodia in the build up to the Pol Pot regime, an underrepresented period in Cambodian history set against the Vietnam War.
Supported by Arts Victoria and The Australia Council.
Allyson Hose (2010), Cambodia
Allyson Hose is a writer, editor and researcher who has worked extensively in book and web publishing and in community organisations. Hose will use her residency to complete her first novel, set in Cambodia in the early 1990s during the United Nation’s peacekeeping operation. She will further work with the Nou Hach Literary Association, exploring the revival of contemporary Khmer culture. Nou Hach is a community organisation dedicated to the revival of Khmer literature, and publishes the country’s only literary journal.
Supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation and the Australia Council.
Kalinda Ashton (2010), Cambodia
Kalinda Ashton is a short-story writer, playwright and published her first novel, The Danger Game, in 2009. Her stories have been broadcast on ABC radio and published in major anthologies and journals including Overland, Meanjin, The Sleepers Almanac, The Readings and Writings Anthology and Kill Your Darlings. She is the Associate Editor at literary journal Overland, and a teacher of creative writing at RMIT University. At the Nou Hach Literary Association she will work on stories that deal with isolation and sense of place, exploring how landscapes influence the lives of travellers. She will also assist her host with their event and publishing programs.
Supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.
Lucy Treloar (2011), Cambodia
Lucy Treloar is an editor, freelance journalist and the author of three children’s books. She lived in Cambodia from 2003 - 07 where she worked on translations of Cambodian narratives. On her return to Melbourne, Lucy began her first adult novel Some Times In Life that explores themes of cultural, social and emotional dislocation in an expatriate community. At the Nou Hach Literary Association Lucy plans to pursue research and continue work on her novel. (SUPPORTED BY THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS)
